After using the InterAction Installation Reference documentation on the Support web site to install InterAction Application Server, review several key configuration settings and change them, if necessary. These settings are stored in a configuration file called InterAction.cfg. This file is automatically created during installation and resides in the Application Server install directory. For example, by default this is:
[Drive]:\Program Files\LexisNexis\InterAction\AppServer\iahome\
You can view and edit the InterAction.cfg file using any text editor. Windows users must edit this file using Notepad as an Administrator user.
Reviewing and Configuring Settings
You should use version control software when editing the InterAction.cfg file. This makes it easy to keep track of changes and to correct mistaken changes. For details, see Using Version Control for the Configuration Files.
After installing Application Server, there are a number of configuration settings to review. This is the minimum configuration required to get Application Server up and running.
Note that the following format is used for variable substitution:
$(hostName)
This indicates a value that Application Server replaces. In this example, Application Server replaces the $(hostName) text with the actual value of an internal variable.
For details about how the configuration files work, see Syntax for Configuration File Settings.
Note that most of these settings are set based on information you enter during installation.
The configuration files themselves include numerous comments describing the variables and their possible settings.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
|
Main Server Settings These settings are set during installation. | |
| IRIS_HOME_DIR |
The directory path where Application Server is installed. The default installation location is: [Drive Letter]:/Program Files/LexisNexis/InterAction/AppServer Use forward slashes in the path name, as shown in this example. |
| IRIS_HOST |
The name of the server on which Application Server is installed. Application Server includes an internal variable for the machine on which it is installed called hostName. Therefore, you normally set this option like this: IRIS_HOST = $(hostName) The host is used in the Web address to access the InterAction Web Client™ using a Web browser. For example, if the Application Server host is IAServer1, the base Web address for Web Client is: http://IAServer1/InterAction |
| IRIS_IA_DATABASE |
The name of the physical database for your InterAction environment. Note that physical database refers to the database created on the server using the database management tools for your database platform, not the InterAction database initialized with InterAction Administrator. For more about this distinction, see Physical Database vs. InterAction Database. |
| IRIS_IA_HOST | The name of the physical server used for your InterAction database. |
| DatabasePort | The InterAction database port to which the InterAction Application Server connects. The default is 1433. |
| IRIS_LOG_DIR |
The location for Application Server log files. By default, this is set to a log directory beneath the home directory: IRIS_LOG_DIR = $(IRIS_HOME_DIR)/log |
| IRIS_PORT | This setting is used internally for diagnostics and should not be modified. This is NOT the setting used externally. |
| IRIS_ETC_DIR |
The location for the Application Server configuration files. These are files that you typically do not need to modify. Normally, these are stored in an etc directory within the home directory: IRIS_ETC_DIR = $(IRIS_HOME_DIR)/etc |
| IRIS_XSL_DIR | The location for the XSL files that are used by the browser. These files are dynamically generated each time the InterAction Application Server starts up, as well as any time there are configuration changes to the Grid declarations. These files do not need to be backed up, but should not be deleted while the Application Server is running. |
| IRIS_TEMPLATES_DIR | The location of various template files (for example, .xls files used by Export to Excel). You may wish to set up shares to this directory to allow end-users to modify these templates. |
| IRIS_CSS_DIR | The location of CSS files (style sheets) that are used by your browser. |
|
SMTP Settings These settings are set during installation. | |
| UseDefaultSMTPConfiguration |
This setting is not set upon installation, but can be used to use/override the default SMTP settings in the Messaging tab in InterAction Administrator. False (default setting) = Use SMTP settings in InterAction.cfg True = Use SMTP settings in the Messaging tab in InterAction Administrator |
| SMTPDomain |
Domain name to be used in email messages (that is, the portion of the email address that appears after the “at” symbol (@). For example: SMTPDomain = crawfordiverson.com |
| SMTPHost |
The name of your e-mail server used for sending e-mail messages. You can use the SMTPDomain value as a variable within this item, as in the following: SMTPHost = mail.$(SMTPDomain) If SMTPDomain is set to crawfordiverson.com, then the above statement sets SMTPHost to the following: mail.crawfordiverson.com |
| SMTPDefaultFrom | The e-mail address from which e-mail alerts are sent. Your mail server determines whether you must use an existing e-mail address for this setting. |
| SMTPSendAlertsTo | The e-mail recipient for any administrative alerts. |
| Other Settings | |
| logLevel | Set this to the logging level you want. Generally you should set this to 0 or 1 unless you are having problems. This provides basic information that can be used for troubleshooting problems. The logs generated by Application Server are covered in detail in Log Files for the Application Server. LexisNexis InterAction Technical Support may request that you change this when troubleshooting. |
Configuring the Application Server for Secondary Instances in SQL Server
SQL Server allows for the installation of “virtual SQL Servers” called instances. You can have multiple instances of SQL Server running on one machine.
To configure the Application Server to connect to a secondary instance, set the DatabasePort setting in the InterAction.cfg file to the port of the secondary instance.
The InterAction.cfg file can be found in the Application Server install directory. By default this is: [Drive]:\Program Files\LexisNexis\InterAction\AppServer\iahome.
Physical Database vs. InterAction Database
The physical database is not the same as the InterAction database. When setting up an InterAction environment, complete these steps:
- Set up the relational database software on your server.
-
Use the tools included with the database software to create a database on your server.
This is the physical database. It contains no user-created tables, records, or triggers. See InterAction and the Relational Database for information.
-
Use InterAction Administrator to initialize an InterAction database on the physical database.
This creates the tables and records required by InterAction. End users see the name of the InterAction database within InterAction; they never see the name of the physical database.
It is important to understand this distinction when setting up Application Server. You need to know the name of the physical database, not the InterAction database.
For example, an InterAction environment might be named with the following items:
- Physical Server: ChgoSvr
- Physical Database Name: ChgoIADatabase
- InterAction Database Name: Chicago (Master)
In this case, the InterAction.cfg would contain the following:
IRIS_IA_HOST = ChgoSvr
IRIS_IA_DATABASE = ChgoIADatabase